Saturday, October 11, 2014

Window on Eurasia: Kremlin Attack on Memorial Part of a Desire to Restore ‘Democratic Centralism’

Paul
Goble

Staunton, October 11 – The legal
theory underlying the Russian justice ministry’s suit to shut down the Memorial
Human Rights Society is taken not from any law but rather from the Soviet-era
practice of democratic centralism, which most people had thought a dead letter
since the demise of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

That
practice, which was the norm in Soviet times, specified that Communists
participate in discussions and elections but must obey decisions taken at
higher ones, would, if restored in the Russian Federation now, destroy far more
than Memorial. It would destroy any possibility of democracy and federalism in
that country.

In a statement issued today,
Memorial made that assertion in the course of a discussion of the case and the
coverage it has received in government media over the last 24 hours, coverage
that it said like the government’s suit itself contained not only “ill-intentioned
lies” but “illiterate” ones as well (memo.ru/d/212424.html).

On the one hand, the media coverage
claimed that the Memorial Human Rights Center supports “extremists and
terrorists.”And on the other, it says
that the Justice Ministry is seeking the liquidation not of the Memorial Human
Rights Center but the Memorial Russian Historical-Enlightenment, and Human
Rights Society.

That society was registered with the
Russian justice ministry in 1992 and since that time has united “various ‘Memorial’
organizations acting in various regions of Russia and involving themselves with
human rights, charitable and historical-enlightenment work,” the Memorial
statement says.

Two years ago, 20 years after its
registration, the justice ministry “suddenly” raised questions about its “all-Russian
status,” even though nothing had changed in the composition of its member
organizations.

What has changed, Memorial says, is “the
position of the Justice Ministry which decided to again impose ‘democratic
centralism’ which supposedly had lost any importance after the elimination of the
leading role of the CPSU” at the end of Soviet times. Thus, the ministry said
Memorial could claim as part of its organization “only those public unions
which include in their names” an indication that they are part of the Memorial
Society.

From the point of view of the ministry,
Memorial said, “the legal requirement that an all-Russian status presupposes
the presence of its structural subdivisions in more than half of the subjects
of the Federation” is irrelevant. Instead, the ministry demands that these
groups “have the formal status of regional” branches of the all-Russian
organization.

Such a requirement has no legal
foundation, Memorial continued, noting that when it requested a citation of the
law under which this suit is being brought, the justice ministry could not supply
it.And the organization said it was “impermissible”
that the justice ministry is thus seeking to “limit the constitutional right of
citizens to organize” in this way.

Russian Memorial, its statement
said, will in the near future -- and
presumably before the November trial date of the ministry’s suit – appeal to
the Russian Constitutional Court, where it continued it hoped to find “greater
respect for the law and the Constitution than is being shown in lower level
judicial institutions.”